THE NAZI HUNTER

As books about bounty hunters in the old West subside, novels of Nazi hunters in the new West Germany arise as their replacements in revenge/suspense fiction; the heroes are as determined, the villains far more villainous, and, even though the methods are electronic rather than horse-powered, the message remains the same--the hunters must deal with the guilt that accrues to those who usurp the vengeance claimed by the Lord. This hunter is Streik, who acts as a one-man, super-efficient execution machine, pulling aside elaborate cover identities to dispatch cowering ex-Nazis. He works with passionless precision until faced with the assassination of the Nazi-turned-successful-politico who had been responsible for the brutal wartime deaths of Streik's young wife and baby. Streik's arrangements accidentally kill his current girlfriend--she's pregnant with his baby and represents his hope for a new life. The moral is thus noisily clear and the book gallops along as an old story in its latest setting.